Chapter 10
I texted Amy and Anais and asked them to meet me near the front gate, where I was waiting for Willow and Pappy. Amay and Anais arrived together and I explained how Jack had told me of a fifth seventy plus member of the Renaissance Festival.
“I spoke to her and she denies that she has anything to do with Pappy’s note. But she also believes in fate, so she doesn’t believe in mutually assured destruction. Willow went after Pappy. I thought maybe Pappy could reason with her. Yippie to Yippie. But I’m also worried that Phoebe might be our extortionist. But she is missing. Her demonstration tent is still sealed up and she wasn’t there for her stage demo today. The security man claims it wasn’t canceled, just postponed. Could one of you stay at the small stage and text me if she appears and would one of you walk around the grounds and see if you can spot her.”
“So this Carla woman believes she has no agency at all. That fate determines everything.”
“Yes she does, I tried arguing with her, but it was just like arguing with a religious zealot. She can’t prove it’s true and I can’t prove that something that doesn’t exist, doesn’t exist. I can only point out that it is an unnecessary complication added on to how things work. Statistically the chances of it being true are so remote that they might be incalculable."
“Wait, you are saying that there is a chance, that it is true.”
“No, what I’m saying is that I can’t prove that some force called Fate doesn’t exist. Neither can they prove that it does. That means there is a non zero chance that it does exist. Just because there is a non zero chance doesn’t make it real. There is a non zero chance that magic exists, do I believe in magic or fate or god. To me non zero chance just means I can’t prove it doesn’t exist. You say you believe in Fate, there is no way for me to logically prove that it doesn’t exist. Same thing if you said I believe in Unicorns. I can’t prove they don’t exist, in fact the chances of unicorns existing is probably much higher than fate, magic, gods.”
“No, that is ridiculous, Laura.”
“No, Anais, it’s not. Gods, fate, magic are all ‘forces’ that can't be measured, they are just beliefs. But a unicorn has a much higher chance of being, because it is by legend real flesh and blood. Now throughout all of the galaxies and all of the planets it is not inconceivable that a unicorn might have evolved. In fact it would be an interesting question to ask a xenobiologist what is more likely to evolve in the universe, a unicorn or a human. But my best guess just from looking around at all the herbivores that have evolved on earth versus the number of intelligent hominids. I even have a great idea of where in space to start looking for them. Can you guess where?”
“No, Laura, this is some stupid joke, isn't it.”
“Yes it is but I really do stand by assessment, unicorns are more likely than intelligent hominids. Now for the stupid joke then please go look for Phoebe. The best place to look for unicorns in space is the Horsehead Nebula.”
Amy groaned then laughed, Anais just turned on her heel and walked off.
***
I wait as patiently as I can. I really want Pappy to talk her down. I’m hoping that he knows who she is and she can fill us or at least Pappy in on who else is in the festival’s traveling troupe that was also in the police riots. Just thinking about the fact that there could be two former yippies who are traveling separately with the same troupe, what are the odds.
If I had spent more time in math class paying attention to math instead of reading or writing. But I’m just thinking of them as random people. Yippies were basically performers, so when you think about it it probably isn’t that much of a stretch that they would look to join a traveling troupe together in their twilight years. Especially if they stayed true to their yippie ideals, they wouldn’t have 401k plans nor corporate retirement accounts to fall back on. If they are lucky they might get social security, if they paid enough into the system over the years.
I saw Willow and Pappy at the gates, I waved to let them know where I was. They came right over and the first thing I had to know is if Pappy knew Carla.
“Hi, Pappy, thanks for coming. Before we go down to meet Carla, do you remember any Yippies that believed in fate.”
“Laura, I think we all believed that the yippies would win in the end. I don’t know if it was belief in fate as much as we would graduate and take over power as has every generation before us. Our error in judgement was that we believed that our generation was united. I think Abby said it at the trial when they asked him about the conspiracy charge, he said something like ‘Hell we couldn’t even agree on a lunch order’ or something to that effect. But if you mean Fate like in the ‘Fates’ no I don’t recall any. Why?”
“Pappy, because this woman claims to be a yippie, was in Chicago but she also swears that she is not the person who wrote that note. But because she believes in fate, she doesn’t believe my theory of mutually assured destruction.”
“No Laura, you know yippies were always about the ‘drama’ not the destruction. We always figured that those in power would just destroy themselves, there was no need for any violence from us. Worked a charm on Nixon. Everybody knew he was going to win that election by a landslide, but they still tried to cheat and break into Watergate, dirty tricks for tricky Dick. Then he still would have been alright, if he had come clean. Instead they went right into coverup mode. That never works. Ben Franklin was probably the smartest American of his generation, he said 'Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.'”
We started down the artist's alley. It took less than a minute to get to Phoebe’s dark tent. Stars, if Phoebe is the extortionist and something happened to her. The person they are going to try and blame is Pappy. Crap, crap, crap. She has to be okay right, that guy said she’d be delayed, not postponed. But did he talk to her or did he get a text from her phone.
She had gotten a phone call that there was a water leak in her trailer. Perhaps it was more dangerous, or more damage then just the water and she needed to deal with that. But if her trailer needed expensive repairs all the more reason to get to work.
Carla’s tent flap was wide open, the three of us went in, after our eyes adjusted to the dim light inside the tent, compared to the brilliant sun beating down on the path between the vendors in Artist’s Alley.
Pappy said, “March Hare?”
Carla said, “Little Bobby, holy shit. What are you doing here? Is this your old lady and kid?”
“No, this is Willow, she owns the bookstore in town. You should go, check it out. It's called “The Rabbit Hole.” sounds like a match made in heaven to me.”
“What about her, she was trying to pump me for information about the yippies, what’s she one of them damn Feds.”
“No, she is my friend, Laura, and she has spent her weekend trying to help me. But Hare what’s this thing I hear you turned religious huh.”
“Hey, I turned eighty this year, the end is nigh. So when she came in here and decided to accuse me of extortion, I decided to have a little fun, is all.”She pointed at me, “ This one got all flustered and tried to convince me to be logical. Me to be logical, not when I can prank somebody. Nope”
I’m pretty sure I blushed, I know my face got hot, “Well, I’m not easily pranked but did I ever stand a chance against a real yippie?”
“No you did not, and my pranking got better over the years, I didn’t sell out like Rubin. If he hadn’t have sold out he’d probably still be alive, he wouldn’t have been able to afford a penthouse apartment in LA. Him and poor Abby. They should have gone into politics. Abby could nominate a donkey to run for vice president, on his presidential ticket, and Rubin, well Jerry could run on the Republican ticket for president and he could nominate Dumbo or one of his brothers to run for vice president.”
“So, you really believe in free will?” I asked.
“Yes, of course, I’m a yippie. We all wanted freedom, we just couldn’t agree on the proper path to get there. But we all did agree on one thing. Non-violence was the way to achieve our goals. We bled on the streets, but that got us on TV and our message about the war spread faster than street theater ever could. When you stand up to a government lackey in a non-violent protest it means that you have to be willing to spill blood. Your own blood and only your blood. Governments hate non-violent protests because it makes them look like the cowards and bullies that they are. Now ICE members are so ashamed of their actions they have to cover their faces. They claim it’s to protect their families. It’s because they don’t want their neighbors to know what they do for a living. If an illegal immigrant gets convicted of a violent crime, make it a federal law that they will be deported. But only after they have due process under the law. Everyone deserves to be treated equally in a court of law no matter what their immigration status. Gandhi beat an empire, it sure as hell wasn’t easy or fast. That’s the lure of violence, it’s fast and easy. But it doesn’t work, slow and sure wins the race,” said Carla
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
“Yes, the incompetent, want fast and easy, they know that they are incompetent, they think if they act incompetently quickly fewer people will notice. But that means we need to be ultra competent. The feds train all their stormtroopers how to deal with rioting mobs, then they garb them in body armor. Then they add weapons. What we need to do to make our non-violent protestors safer, is to train them how to make the maximum statements, in the safest possible way. To wear helmets, motorcycle, football, hockey to protect their heads. The front lines should be sitting. If a fed grabs you, just go limp. Then you are just dead weight. The front line of the sitting protestors should be sitting down with arms linked with their neighbors on each side. It will make it harder to drag a person out of line. Above all we want video streaming video of what the feds are doing. Audio if possible of what they are saying. But I think that Rubin and Hoffman knew the best way to beat a bully is to make fun of them. Have you ever met a bully with a sense of humor, the only time a bully laughs is when someone gets hurt. Bring back Pigasus, paint him as orange as the pig commander in chief. Authority really has no authority when you are laughing at them.”
“I think we have an opportunity to hurt them in the marketplace. Just take a look at the people who paid to have a seat behind Trump on the podium the day he was inaugurated. Refuse to do business with them. That goes for every company or university that bows to his will. But even more important is to spend five to twenty five percent less this year. The economy is driven by consumers so the best form of protest, the ones to strike fear in the hearts of all those companies, is to stop consuming. CBS is dead to me. I don’t care if they had Jerry Garcia back from the dead to do a live show, I will never watch their channel. I might pirate it later after the fact. But if we could get enough people to just cut spending by ten percent, it would be so much better for them. They would be building an emergency fund. All the people who voted for Trump only because they wanted a strong economy would see that you can’t elect a wannabe king because you think you’ll do better in the stock market. Trump’s big things are oil and AI, so use as little gas as possible and if you have a subscription to AI, cancel. Amazon Prime, cancel. Anything that Trump seems remotely interested in cancel. Just look at your entertainment budget, cancel it all for a year. Learn how to torrent, never go back while when you purchase a book, movie or TV show has DRM. Pirated files are superior to the files you actually pay for. Pirated files contain no DRM, no ads and actually play. Once you download the latest greatest show you can actually share it easily with your family and friends. Personally, I’m trying to do this by being cashless where possible, if I can do it with just five percent of my expenditures then cut back on five percent more. I’ll end up with more money and hopefully inspire others without preaching at them. When they ask why are you doing a cashless summer, I can tell them that I don’t like Trump or any of his cronies and I refuse to pay into their system. My store is going to start giving away e-books, from now on every e-book we sell or give away will come with a copy of Civil Disobedience.”
“Well, Laura, maybe you are not as bad as I thought you were. But if you own a business won’t that just generate revenue for the feds.”
“Only if I pay taxes, you only pay tax on a profit, right, so if I can get my financial wiz to calculate exactly how much profit I need to generate to pay my staff, power and property taxes, then add maybe a five percent buffer for emergency repairs. I could then discount all my books to that level. People could take a bite out of the economy while still treating themselves to a physical book. I haven’t looked into recycling books, through a used books section because there is a used bookstore just ten miles away and I don’t want to cut into their business. But maybe we could work out some sort of arrangement that is mutually beneficial to both stores like Willow and I have. I just had an amazing idea, how would you like to help all those protestors that are out on the front lines battling Trump’s bullies, Carla, Pappy.”
“What have you got in mind, Laura?”
“An e-book called “The Yippie Guide to Protest” subtitle would be ‘Non-Violent Protest Today, by Prankster Protestors of the Past’. Chapter One would be a history of the Yippie movement, Chapter Two, Safe Non-Violent Protesting Basics. Chapter Three Street Theater for Social Change. Chapter Four Companies to Avoid, Chapter Five Cut your Taxes and Your Debt. Any more chapters that people would care to add.”
“I’m not a writer.” Carla lamented.
“Neither am I Laura, I was out of high school at fifteen and spent my life in a junkyard.”
“But that is exactly the kind of writing we need. We don’t need a Harvard professor to write a manual on protest. We need protestors, who protested and bled for their cause. Also you two might not be writers, but I have thirty plus years as a senior editor at a major publishing house. Also I’m not asking you to write a novel or even a book, an essay. I’ll give you a list of questions, you look at the list, the first question that you feel like answering, you answer. If you have a computer or laptop, just open up the text editor and type. You don’t worry about spelling, punctuation or about grammar. That is exactly what AI was created for. Then I’ll read over the file, I’ll ‘suggest changes’ then if you agree, you’ll make those changes. If not, then we just leave them as written. Over the years I have suggested changes to some of the biggest names in the publishing industry. The biggest names usually take it the least personally because they realize that I just want to make their book the very best book it can be. In your case the only suggestions I will make is if I see a way for you to say something in a clearer manner, so the reader is more likely to understand the idea you are trying to get across. That’s the essence of editing anyway. Rearranging the words so that the author’s ideas come across in a clear manner.”
“I don’t have a computer, Laura.”
“That’s not a problem, Pappy. First off, I kind of enslaved my intern into working for free and I know that she wants a new laptop. But her old laptop would be fine to use for writing. I don’t want to speak for her, but Willow is excellent with computers, maybe you can make a deal with her for tech support. I just need Willow to act as a spy for me so that I order Lucy, the laptop she wants or a better one. It’s a business expense as I haven’t paid her anything. This will be her store laptop that she gets to keep with her at all times for all time. But if it needs to be repaired or replaced, well that is a store expense. She’ll be expected to keep all of her great ideas for the store on the laptop and sync those to the server we need to set up for free ebooks. But Carla, what I really need to know is where Phoebe is and why is she extorting Pappy?”
“Laura, I can tell you two things. I do not know where Phoebe is, I heard that she had a problem with a waterleak in her trailer last night. So I assume that she is still dealing with that. The second thing I can say without breaking any confidences is that Phoebe would never in a million years extort Little Bobby. I’m so sure that if you find out she is extorting him, I’ll pay the extortion myself, how is that for a deal?”
“You seem pretty sure, you must be close friends.”
“Yes, the best of friends. She also reached out to me when she got her job here with the Renaissance Festival to see if I wanted to join in as well. So I read some books on fortunetelling and showed up to where the festival was staying for a few weeks. Phoebe got me an interview with Oliver, vouched for me and helped me set up my tent. So yeah we are close friends, that’s how I know she isn’t extortioning Bobby.”
“Well, have you seen anyone at the festival with ties to Chicago, that might have been there in sixty eight. A cop, a national guardsman, another yippie, a reporter. Even just a Chicago native that might have gone to the protests just to watch, to say they were there?”
“No, I’m sorry Laura, I haven’t. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t here. I don’t see a whole lot down here at the end of artists alley. Any of those people you just mentioned might be here but unless they were into fortunetelling I wouldn’t have any idea that they were. As you can see this end of Artist Alley is the least traveled, with the fewest customers. Honestly, if they walked into my tent for a reading a Chicago cop or national guardsman from Chicago in sixty-eight, what are the odds that I could possibly recognize them from fifty six years in my past?”
“Yeah, I know, Carla. I was sure it was someone from the festival. Someone over seventy. It’s not Jack Weber or Oliver Maguire right, I thought I had ruled them both out.”
“Oliver is too busy with ‘princess’ to have time to extort someone. Some girls will date anyone to be treated like a queen. But this is all just too on the nose. Jack Weber couldn’t have been in Chicago because he was in Montreal, working. He claims, but I secretly think that he was in Montreal to dodge the draft not to work as he claims. But that is his business not mine.”
“I talked to Paloma and she claimed to have never been to Chicago, and Pappy, you said you didn’t know anyone from London.”
“Yeah, I don’t.” Pappy replied.
“She’s not from London, although she has a serious Shakespeare fetish, she’s from West Virginia. That accent is as fake as the wigs the actors wear. That doesn’t mean that she was in Chicago or that she is your extortionist. I believe that she knows that Phoebe and I were yippies and she never said anything about being one too. But it’s not like the other political parties. We didn’t register people to vote or make membership lists. We never even made grocery lists. She is devoted to our theater troupe."
“I have to go speak to her, if you are sure that Phoebe isn’t who we are looking for, it may very well be Paloma. Whoever it is is trying to frame you Carla. They signed the note with your initials. Maybe Paloma was a Chicago cop, or reporter, or a bystander. I still don’t see how someone could identify Pappy, unless they have an eidetic memory like mine. It’s very very rare, but it would provide an explanation how a cop, reporter or just someone in the police lobby would remember Pappy fifty six years later.”
Willow asked, “Want me to come with you, Laura?”
“No, I want her at her ease and if we all show up, that will raise her suspicions. She’ll be less likely to talk. Maybe come to the theater and just wait with the crowd. If you see a lot of security coming, tell them you are looking for your lost grandma. Be sure to tell them that I get confused. They’ll have no choice but to turn me over to you.”
“Laura, do you think she is going to call security on you?”
“I’m not sure, she threatened last time and I hadn’t accused her of anything. If she does call security and you have already informed them I was lost and confused, hopefully they’ll just return me to your gentle care. When they turn me back over to you, remember to scold me for running off and say how worried you were.”
Carla barked with laughter, “Bobby boy, this one would have made a great yippie.”
I did a little bow and Willow and I exited Carla’s tent. Phoebe’s tent was still closed up and dark. We made our way though a midafternoon crowd both shopping and eating in Artists Alley. Henry the V was being performed again. There were no seats so Willow stood in the back of the theater behind the seating.
There was a security guard flanking either side of the stage so from behind the back row, I made my way into some trees stage left and then walked right into the outdoor section of the backstage. Paloma was not sitting where I’d last seen her. There was really no reason to expect her to be sitting here, so I just waited for the first person to emerge from the stage and lied.
“Hi Oliver, sent me to find Paloma. Do you have any idea where she might be?”
